XBOX 360 - 240p Video Conversion?

[Fudoh]

If the sync cable goes to Scart Pin 20, then it's from VGA to Scart. If it's going to Pin 19, it's the other way around.

The Scart breakout adapter should work fine.

Keene is right, RGsB would work in both ways, but you're not using RGsB, but RGBs (which uses 4 wires instead of 3).

[Overkill]

Brought the vga-scart cable with me today for work and allready change the pin 19 to 20 in my break time. Gonna try it at night at home

[Overkill]

Ok, so im going to need to annoy you people one more time.

The vga to scart cable still don't work, so i decided to remove all cables and gonna put it all together.

One side = Vga, other side = scart cable with :
solder/ground??
red cable
Green cable
Blue cable
Yellow cable
White cable
Gray cable
orange cable
Purple cable
brown cable

I would be very gratefull for a site with an image for the correct pinout, im looking in google i saw lots of diferents schematics

[Fudoh]

You can't go by the cable colors. You have to open up both sides or use a multimeter to measure which cable is connected to which pin.

[Overkill]

Argh i knew it wasn't be so easy i think i have a multimeter at work.

Strange think was when i connected that "hama YUV phono to scart adapter", no picture, but when i change the rca cablesm when just connecte one of the 4 cables i got image, a bit wave like and without color, but synced, and the bnc cable was not conected on the H output of the extron, weird

[Overkill]

Ok, so everything is working now. Have to change the pin 19 to 20, and the V sync to pin 16. Even with composite sync switch enabled on the extron the unit needs all five bnc's connected to give the image. Is that correct? i was thinking only the RGB plus the h sync have to be connected.

Anyway, the results are great, very good pseudo 240p with scanlines efect. the ntsc xbox works great too, don't notice that killing flicker talked a few posts ago.

in xbox i should select 720x480 or 480i resolution? i remember reading something about it a few time ago.

Bad thing now is a strange noise coming from my phillips cm8833

[fagin]

I have revisted this for the purpose of normal CRT TV owners (not arcade monitors or PVM's).

As I may have alluded... making up a DSUB15 to SCART lead is pretty easy (to go from RGB interface to TV).

A comment was made earlier about a normal CRT TV not liking the sync signal. Whilst I appreciate this maybe an issue on some sets, I have tried this on two Sony CRT's and a cheap branded CRT.... no issues on the sync recognition.

So it works and you get a picture etc.... but now the bad news!

It does not appear to do what it does on my Arcade Monitors with regard to the pseudo scanlines.

If you're looking to get the 480i -> 240p "look" on a normal CRT TV, it does not appear that this is the answer..... it just looks like the native 480i signal.

[Fudoh]

I think this really depends on the TV. I tried this on a classic Sony Trinitron from the mid 90s (KV-29X1D) and it did indeed change the resolution to 240p. When somebody first discovered this last year this person even had a small LCD which correctly saw 240p instead of 480i.

[fagin]

Mmmmm I've just tried it on a KV-21X1U and no joy.

The only other explanation (other than TV) is my lead, but I can't really see it being that as I get a picture.

[futurematt5]

Hey guys, just made this video showing how the Bang and Olufsen MX 4000-8000 range of high end CRTs have an inbuilt de-interlacing circuit for those pseudo 240p scan lines on any xbox360 game!!

I tested using Dodonapachi DFK and Espgaluda 2 for the video, and with the exception of the odd artifact and a bit of wobble on bright whites, the image looked dang good. Since making the video, I have tested on Guwange, which probably because of its color palatte or scaling effects, looks even better than DDP.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pws_g1ZF2ic&noredirect=1

[Sparda]

Amazing ...well done

Are they hard to find ? Expensive ?

[fagin]

Great find Matt.

[futurematt5]

Well it appears that I started something of a trend when I first featured this CRT on my channel in February.

They are cheap for what you get - you pay between 20 and 50 quid (tops).

I know of six people who have written to me saying they bought one. So yeah, definitely worth getting hold of one.

[Overkill]

Unfortunately my impressions with the Bang & Olufsen 4000 are not so positive. My model comes equipped with a Phillips tube, it's great to see PAL DVDs, play PS1 games, Megadrive, Snes, etc. everything that is in 240p or PAL. 480i NTSC signals are strangely horrible, the picture suddenly loses sharpness and the colors begin to bleed and do not go to place with no tuning at all. As for the 240p mode enabled by code is no solution to these sources in 480i, because despite winning scanlines image suffers from a horrible flicker that kills the eyes of any mortal.

[leonk]

Pretty much a question of configuring MAME the right way. Using the right settings you can get your "blocky" graphics with 480p as well, so that's no problem. Using soft15khz or an ArcadeVGA might be a little bit sharper, but overall you'll still be running into resolutions which are not supported and you have to pay a lot of attention to booting your PC since Soft15hz will only start working when Windows' been booted. Before that your PC will output 31khz which might damage your monitor. Using a scan converter like the Emotia is safe in this aspect of course.

Hi Fudoh, I've been reading your very informative web site, and there was 1 line that struck a nerve with me (sorry from bring this thread back from the dead, but the search function on the forum suggested this is the best thread to post my $0.02 into):

"Who wants emulated scanlines or an ArcadeVGA card which renders your PC pretty useless for everything else."

While I agree that ArcadeVGA has it's limitations, and soft15 is a pain in the rear to setup, there has been some great progress in the last little while that you might have not been aware of: GroovyMame + Calamity modified ATI drivers.

It's basically almost like Soft15, but a lot better. It works with ATI HD 4xxx series video cards (much newer than ArcadeVGA, so you can play with more modern games on your arcade machine). The magic (for MAME) happens with GroovyMame. It talks with the modified ATI drivers, and uses the best resolution that your monitor supports, while trying to be the most accurate to the original game.

i.e. you configure GroovyMame with your monitor information. Calamity sets Windows/Linux to the resolution you want. GroovyMame auto configures the resolution for you. No more mucking around settings, it just works. And it supports more resolutions than the arcadeVGA, faster, and better. In fact, GroovyMame + Calamity is being used by some arcadeVGA owners (rather than the inferior arcadeVGA drivers).

as for 31khz at bootup. I resolved that by feeding the video through a JPAC, which splits 31khz down to 15khz (for BIOS only).

I'd love to see a comparison on your web site of this setup vs scan concerter for MAME players.

Thanks.

[Fudoh]

Thanks for the inside. That's interesting for CRT users, which I'm really not (anymore). It might be interesting to see how a PC equipped this way looks through a XRGB-Mini, I don't have the means to try this.

[robneal81]

Sorry to post in a really old thread, but I have a quick question:

I just bought an Extron 580xi. I was hoping to use it to convert a few different 480i RGB sources (all are RGB SCART) to a 240p signal, which I'll be displaying on my Sony PVM monitor. Do I absolutely need a Sync Strike box between the console and 580xi, or can I simply make a SCART to VGA cable?

[Fudoh]

As far as I know, the 360 does only output composite video in 15khz RGB mode. Maybe the H/V sync pins on the connector are active as well and could be combined for pure c-sync, but the standard RGB cable certainly uses composite video for sync.

[robneal81]

As far as I know, the 360 does only output composite video in 15khz RGB mode. Maybe the H/V sync pins on the connector are active as well and could be combined for pure c-sync, but the standard RGB cable certainly uses composite video for sync.

Sorry Fudoh, I'm not sure I understand. I'm not using an Xbox 360, I'm using a few other consoles that output 480i via an RGB SCART cable...and I'm pretty sure they all use composite video for sync, not "raw sync". I guess if the 580xi won't accept sync via composite, then I definitely need the Sync Strike.

I was hoping an easier solution would be to send the sync cable from the SCART side (game console) to both the H & V sync pins on the VGA side (going into the 580xi).

[Fudoh]

ups, sorry, picked up the 360 from the topic title....

some systems can deliver raw sync (Mega Drive, Super Famicom...), but not all of them, so using a sync stripper in line would be the easiest solution.

It's not about splitting the sync. The Extrons accept C-Sync on the H-sync-pin just fine, it just needs to be clean (without modulated luminance and color information).

[robneal81]

ups, sorry, picked up the 360 from the topic title....

some systems can deliver raw sync (Mega Drive, Super Famicom...), but not all of them, so using a sync stripper in line would be the easiest solution.

It's not about splitting the sync. The Extrons accept C-Sync on the H-sync-pin just fine, it just needs to be clean (without modulated luminance and color information).

Ahhh, gotcha. So I'll try using a SCART to VGA cable first and see if it works, but I'll expect it not to. If not, I'll buy a Sync Strike.

Actually, that reminds me...can you (or anyone else reading) recommend a place to buy SCART to VGA, as well as VGA to SCART cables? There's an eBay seller from the UK that supposedly sells them, but when I ordered the cable, it was wired very wrong: The "red" pin was soldered to the right audio channel on the SCART connector (there were other mistakes, but that was the worst one). I'd love to find a place that sells them cheap, instead of making them from scratch.

Also (sorry for all the questions), is there a good place to buy a Sync Strike in the US, or just the main site?:
http://joca-tech.de/Arcadeforge/product ... ucts_id=15

Thanks again for your help!

[Fudoh]

The Sync Strike is just a sync stripper. Can't be too hard to find something similar in the US, can it ?

It's not a good idea to buy ready-made Scart to VGA cables. Quality, pinput and direction are always problems. Just find somebody in the neighbourhood with a soldering iron and get that stuff done "in-house". it's very easy to include a LM1881 into such a cable right away.

[robneal81]

The Sync Strike is just a sync stripper. Can't be too hard to find something similar in the US, can it ?

It's not a good idea to buy ready-made Scart to VGA cables. Quality, pinput and direction are always problems. Just find somebody in the neighbourhood with a soldering iron and get that stuff done "in-house". it's very easy to include a LM1881 into such a cable right away.

You know, I was just thinking of doing the same thing. I'll order a few LM1881 and build it right into the cable.

Too bad there isn't a reliable source for those cables. They're easy to make, but it's pretty boring.

Thanks again.

[Overkill]

Maybe this can be what you need:

http://joca-tech.de/Arcadeforge/index.php?cPath=15

or this one:

http://www.ebay.es/itm/CABLE-ARCADE-VGA ... 3cd170ac08

See more items from that seller, also have some lm1881 circuits

[robneal81]

Maybe this can be what you need:

http://joca-tech.de/Arcadeforge/index.php?cPath=15

or this one:

http://www.ebay.es/itm/CABLE-ARCADE-VGA ... 3cd170ac08

See more items from that seller, also have some lm1881 circuits

Thanks for the links, but shipping from Spain to the US costs 10 times as much as the cables. It seems like a good buy for anyone in Europe, but it looks like I'm stuck making my own.

[Overkill]

I just bought an Extron 580xi. I was hoping to use it to convert a few different 480i RGB sources (all are RGB SCART) to a 240p signal, which I'll be displaying on my Sony PVM monitor. Do I absolutely need a Sync Strike box between the console and 580xi, or can I simply make a SCART to VGA cable?

If you are in the USA, you should try to grab an used extron emotia. That Extron 580xi "trick" don't work on all tv/monitor sets. You could end getting the cables, and no 240p image at all.

[Fudoh]

but he would need a linedoubler as well, 480i to 240p and 480p to 240p are two very different things. But I agree, a proper scan converter is of course better.

[robneal81]

but he would need a linedoubler as well, 480i to 240p and 480p to 240p are two very different things. But I agree, a proper scan converter is of course better.

Right, the Emotia won't accept a 480i RGB signal as an input. I actually own an Extron Super Emotia, which I use to go from 480p VGA to RGB (either 240p or 480i).

[robneal81]

I finally received the Sync Strike, but it appears that my 580xi isn't doing anything at all. The "level" works and if I play around with the switches, eventually I'll loose sync, but the source never looks 240p. When I flip back and forth between the original 480i source and the signal running through the 580xi, it looks identical. I'm assuming I need to return this one and buy another one, but just to confirm: Is there any special setup? Just leave all the switches down, plug everything in and turn on my source, right?

[Fudoh]

the "DDSP off" switch switches the output between 480i and 240p. And of course you have to use the processed BNC outputs, not the HD15 "monitor" output.

If it doesn't work, I would try to confirm first that your display is compatible before going for another interface.